Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: What does Vignette do? Was Re: Today's scriptingNews Outline

Author:Jason Gerry
Posted:12/13/1999; 7:12:05 PM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:13613 (In response to 13610)
Prev/Next:13612 / 13614

...perhaps their database structure is overly complex so that typical queries take too long... Tuning seems to be an important part of a typical Story Server implementation. It's that scary engineering big iron thing again.

This hits the nail on the head. These are the problems that I deal with all day, every day. It's unlikely that the Vignette server itself it causing the slowdowns... In most cases, that is. Performance of dynamic sites is very often, in my experience almost always, bottlenecked at the database layer. It's hard to find someone who knows a lot about open DB connections, network traffic flow, optimal DB architecture (both physical and logical), SQL tuning, query weight limiting, and general web server performance. So generally things get lost in the shuffle; pieces of the big-picture puzzle are often underanalyzed or just plain ignored.

It does irk me that the StoryServer product is just a bunch of UNIX hacks (which I can do myself, for the most part). The product itself doesn't bother me as much as the price and support system... Yet another underpowered, overpriced piece of software that exists solely to pad the bank accounts of consultants who may spend months, or years, implementing your 'solution' for you.

In a similar vein... I was in quite a few airports recently during my vacation, and I noticed LOTS of new ads for the likes of KPMG, Arthur Andersen, Andersen Consulting... All purporting to handle your ecommerce, web site, content management system, etc. Lots of similar ads in magazines this month.

I shudder to think how little would get done and how much money would be spent if I turned over large chunks of our company's money to one of these groups. Same story as Vignette -- lots of corporate posturing and hype and management crap and very little actual work.

jason

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